Mid-Semester Nonsense

Clearly I waited too long on this post. (Note: I wrote this a month ago) It didn't feel like we were doing anything interesting enough for me to write about, but I was mistaken. First a quick rundown, then elaboration on a few of the big things that have happened.

Freshman Design Competition (build a small R/C boat, and race others)

Andy goes climbing in Wales

We finally get in to an archaeology class that fits in our schedule

Satchel goes to a London Offshore Consultancy conference

Andy, Chris, and Cody go to Ireland for Halloween

Satchel plays in a regional Ultimate Frisbee Tournament

We spend hours hand drafting a vice for coursework

We went to an awesome party at Dr. Stephen Payne's house for the Fifth of November

We go to see Skyfall-Awesome!

We present on Ancient Naval Architecture and its Influence on Mediterranean Boat Design

Current Time

In the first week of school, we were split up into design groups, much like Freshman Boat Building at Webb. We were asked to design a small cargo vessel, with a max beam of 15cm. Cody and I were in the same group and we chose to make a rather general bulk carrier, and it paid off. We had some soldering issues, but didn't sink and still completed the sea trials in second place. Chris's group came first in sea trials. Meanwhile, Andy's boat sank. However, the competition consisted of both sea trials and a presentation given to the "clients". Our group won the overall competition.

A video of the finished vessel is available here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_r5oUOeJKk&feature=g-upl




Andy, Cody, and Chris went to Ireland to visit some of the friends we made on our Queen Mary 2 crossing. They took the bus and a ferry, a twenty hour ride each way, but it worked out well. They stayed in Cork, and saw some cool things.

I am not sure about any of these places, but the Halloween costumes look pretty sweet!

The final notable event of our semester so far was a wonderful Guy Fawkes party at Dr. Stephen Payne's house. Not only were there wondrous quantities of excellent food, there was an extravagant fireworks display in the back yard that had me slightly frightened by its magnitude and distance from the house.  We met quite a few people from the industry and got to speak with them about their jobs and just ships in general. We are once again very grateful for Dr. Payne's generosity, and struggling to come up with a way to thank him.

It has been a great semester so far, and I hope that it will continue.

Extremely glad to see the beginning of hurricane recovery. Hope all are well.

Kind Regards,

Satchel